Phantom in the Night

by Sherrilyn Kenyon

  The dates didn't fit, but maybe they had to move up the attack.

  If the viral outbreak and this container shipment were connected, her grandmother was just as vulnerable here, and maybe more at risk, until Terri solved this case. Grandma knew nothing about BAD, She thought Terri really was freelancing as a consultant. Call Carlos to help?

  Terri started weighing the pluses and minuses, a major one being that she still didn't know who to trust in any agency with her life. Trusting her grandmother's with BAD or anyone else in law enforcement was out of the question.

  Grandma knew Nathan, or at least that he was a Drake.

  Bad as it sounded, Terri's best hope lay with trusting an ex-con.

  She might not care for Nathan's tactics, but she did trust him to find a way to protect her grandmother. The plus would be sending him out of sight until she figured some way to clear Nathan of the charges. She used the desk phone to call him, grateful that she finally had a number for him.

  "What's up?" Nathan answered sharply as if he was in a hurry.

  "Have you heard about the viral outbreak in Chicago?"

  "Yes. Got a lead yet?"

  "Not yet. I called because Grandma is in Chicago."

  He cursed low, but she heard every word. His anger on her behalf softened her insides. She believed him when he said he hadn't killed the three men, but Nathan hid secrets and couldn't see past his need for revenge. They had nowhere to go from here that wouldn't end up with him on the wrong side of a police-issued weapon.

  "The good news is that she's on her way home," Terri continued. "The bad news is her message on my cell phone broke up so I didn't get all her flight information."

  "What do you need me to do?"

  Was he driving? Sounded like the car motor in the background.

  "Can you find somewhere safe for her until we get a handle on this? I won't be able to go home and keep an eye on her and I don't want someone coming into the house to get me only to find my blind grandmother."

  "I'll handle it."

  That was the man who had stolen her heart. Nothing was too much to ask of him… except to abandon hunting for his brother's killer.

  Then again, maybe she did ask too much of him.

  "She'll call me as soon as she lands," Terri explained. "Her friends will take her home. If you could pick her up from home, I'll call you as soon as I hear from her."

  "Stoner will—" He paused. Definitely street sounds in the background."—take her somewhere safe. Too dangerous to be with me."

  The APB. Open season on Nathan Drake. "If you'd come in—"

  "Write this down," Nathan said, cutting her off. Then he rattled off a phone number Terri scribbled on a sticky note before continuing. "Call Stoner with details. For security, tell your grandmother when she meets him, to ask Stoner where he last worked with me. South America. He has family close to New Orleans in Metairie. She'll be safe."

  "I'll call you as soon as I hear from her." Terri stopped talking and listened closer. A car engine—the Javelin?—revved high and tires squealed. "What are you doing?"

  "Driving. Anything else?"

  Sirens squeezed through the phone line.

  Terri hunched close to the phone and whispered. "Are you being chased?"

  "Yes. Little busy right now. We through?"

  Was he serious? How could he sound so calm? "No. You better not get caught, dammit."

  "Don't plan to." The squeal of rubber on pavement stretched for two seconds, then louder sirens filled the lines before a click. He'd hung up.

  She clutched the phone. What if they caught him? Would he give up or get shot? The nausea was back. Grandma wouldn't like being picked up by a stranger, but if Terri told her Vic Stoner was a friend of hers and the Drake boy, as Grandma called Nathan, she would probably understand and go with Stoner.

  Terri's cell phone buzzed. She answered it without looking at the ID in case Nathan had called back with some last words to give her before he got shot or died. Melodramatic? Probably, but she was involved with a lunatic. "Mitchell here."

  "Terri, you okay? You sound sick," Carlos said.

  "Allergies."

  He seemed to accept that. "I've been trying to reach you between coordinating with the teams in India."

  "My phone has been acting up."

  "I'll get you a new one, but you should be checking in more often."

  She accepted the criticism, glad he sounded too tired to chew on her worse, "I didn't have anything… until now."

  "Really? Have any idea who released that virus or what it is?"

  "Not yet, but I might soon. Where are you now? Do you have computer access?"

  "Yes, I'm at our satellite office in Baton Rouge, but I'm leaving soon, Retter and his team are held up getting out of India, so I may have to put a team together for Chicago."

  "I have a lead, well, more of a hypothesis, but I need to get out of here to talk." If Terri couldn't get Grandma home any faster or save Nathan from the police, the least she could do was find the damn missing tools and see if there was anything there that could help them. "I need someone's home address."

  "Whose?"

  "Fred Taggart," She gave Carlos everything she had on Fred, starting with his badge number.

  Carlos had the address in one minute. "Need a partner?"

  "No, He's a friendly. Let me get down to my car and I'll catch you up." She walked out to the parking lot with two officers, who climbed into separate squad cars. Nathan wouldn't be here to watch over her if she ran into trouble. She hurried to reach the exit ahead of both cars, then waited on them.

  When she pulled out, they were right behind her. Her car purred while she waited on an opening. She scooted out ahead of a string of traffic, leaving the two squad cars stuck.

  And anyone who might have been right behind them hoping to follow her.

  What was Nathan doing? Had they caught him? Instead of the GPS she should have had a police scanner installed, Terri tried Nathan first—voicemail—then called Carlos back.

  Carlos answered on one ring. "What are you going to do at Taggart's?"

  Shake that fool until his teeth falls out if he doesn't hand over what he stole. "Nothing that requires two people. Just going to ask him for contents the captain believes he took from the container to determine if he has anything that will help with the investigation. I'll offer to keep him out of trouble if he comes clean."

  "So what's your hypothesis?" Carlos prompted.

  "I think the drug shipment was a Trojan horse to get something more important out of customs quicker. With New Orleans so shorthanded on law enforcement, they probably figured getting to it in the police yard would be less trouble. The dead body threw a kink into getting the container released, so the NOPD gets a tip on drugs inside and, bam, the container is released into their custody. If the person who broke into the container had gotten what they wanted the first time, it wouldn't have looked odd, but they broke in twice so it was clearly not for the drugs. The steel frame had been opened the first time and the drugs were removed."

  "What do you think he was looking for both times?"

  She whipped her car around a bus that had stopped in her lane. "I'm thinking a virus was transported somewhere in that box of teak pieces. Nothing else makes sense. I only unwrapped a couple of tools when I first searched the container, since those didn't appear to be anything but merchandise. I don't know if Taggart has something significant or not, but if he does I'm going to get it."

  "Joe's short on people for Chicago. I may be on the way there. He's got two teams arriving in Nashville this afternoon from India. Call me as soon as you determine if Taggart has anything we want. If he doesn't hand it over willingly, I'll send Retter to retrieve it." Retter was part of their clean-up and extraction unit. When things got messy, he was one of the agents who got dirty.

  "I will," she said and hung up. She should have finished that sentence, which was, "I will… not leave without everything Taggart stole." She didn't need BAD's t
op muscle.

  Her phone rang again.

  Grandma. Thank goodness.

  * * *

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Terri read house numbers as she cruised down Taggart's street. His neighborhood was west of the city, far enough away not to have been flooded from the looks of the houses in good repair. Her cell phone rang. "Mitchell here."

  "We think we found Sammy." Philborn sounded more glum than his usual flat personality.

  Think? She licked her suddenly dry lips. "What do you mean? Is he alive?"

  "No, and we can't visually identify him. Running DNA tests and checking for dental records."

  "Oh, dear God. Was he burned?"

  "That probably would have been better. Looks like some kind of virus. We're thinking the same thing that hit Chicago. Our ME quarantined the body and called the CDC. It's pretty disgusting."

  Her stomach lurched. "Where did you find him?"

  "In a plastic bag next to the Dumpster in our parking lot. We don't know who dropped it, but they wanted to leave a message. Doesn't fit Marseaux's standard MO, except for the arrogance. Where are you?"

  "Running down a lead on the contents." There was Taggart's brick home, "I've got to go, but I'll fill you in as soon as I get back." She'd have to at this point. But the minute she was out of here, she would personally put her grandmother on an airplane to visit Grandma's sister in Houston.

  New Orleans might not be safe now.

  Bile climbed her throat at the quick image of Sammy killed like those poor people in India and Chicago. And if her theories were right, this proved someone had control of a deadly virus and was carefully choosing targets.

  How dare they play God?

  Terri hung up and pulled into the drive behind Taggart's late-model pickup truck parked inside a carport.

  She rushed over to the front door and pounded. A television played inside.

  Loud grouching carried above the television announcer, then the door opened and Fred squinted at her. Dressed in a white undershirt and faded jeans, he was the epitome of a man trying to enjoy his time off. "What do you want?"

  "The tools you stole from the container."

  He curled his lip. "Don't come here with that crap. Plenty of people have been in that container." He tried to close the door.

  Terri slapped a palm against the door and shoved her booted foot against the kick plate. She locked evil gazes, but hers brimmed with months of frustration and boiling anger over the news of Sammy's death.

  "I'll keep this simple, Fred. No one knows I'm here, for now. Sammy's disfigured body just showed up at head-quarters. He was killed by the virus unleashed in Chicago today."

  Fred's wrinkled face paled.

  Been watching the gruesome news, huh? Timing is everything.

  Terri didn't miss a breath. "Philborn is close to figuring out the tools you palmed from the container match the rest of the contents stolen when Sammy disappeared… working your damn shift, I might add. Those tools could be the key to figuring out who is behind this outbreak. If Philborn comes for those contents, you'll lose your pension and go to jail. But that's a much better scenario than if you don't give them to me this minute and you accidentally come into contact with that virus."

  Fred's eyes watered. His hands shook, then he mumbled to follow him. The house reeked of fried fish. Fred led her through his wood-paneled living room, where a stuffed bass was hung on the wall. The television had come from a different decade, but the grotesque pictures streaming past of victims in Chicago came through as clear as the national news anchor's voiceover.

  Fred opened a door to what should be a bedroom, but the space had been turned into a workshop with a table saw and lathe. Terri waited as he pulled out a drawer on a tall metal chest, then stepped aside quickly, staring at the drawer with sweaty horror. "This is all of it."

  She scanned the drawer containing three pairs of beautifully carved tools. Two L squares and two small narrow saws with teak handles, plus two carpenter levels with sealed glass tubes of liquid mounted with tiny gold screws within a cutout section of wood. The bubble inside the tubes indicated when the two-foot piece of teak was perfectly level.

  The tubes could just as easily contain a lethal virus.

  Terri picked up the carpenter level to examine closer.

  "What if you break that?"

  "I doubt anyone would ship something this deadly in a glass container that would shatter easily." She hoped not, but that didn't stop her heart from pounding with a healthy amount of trepidation. Upon close inspection, she could see a small ring at the top that slid clockwise when she put a fingernail against it.

  She laid the tool back down, slid the ring halfway around, exposing the top of the vial. Using two fingers, she gently lifted the vial from the bracket.

  The second vial released just as easily. Both were sealed with a rubber coating on one end, but one had an X etched in the tube and the other did not.

  Terry picked up a soft cloth and wrapped the vials carefully, then turned to leave.

  "Look, I'm sorry about—" Fred started to say.

  "Save it for Sammy's family. I've got to go." Terri raced out of the house to her car.

  "Make it fast. I'm waiting on another call." Not exactly a cell phone call, but a message. Duff had sent a text message confirmation to Fra Bacchus that he'd located the last two vials ten minutes ago. The transmitter in Terri Mitchell's car relayed enough of her conversation for him to know she had them, but not where she'd gone.

  What was taking the Fra so long? He normally answered quickly when it was a matter of interest to him.

  "Just wanted to let you know everything is falling into place here." Parker's enthusiasm poured across the lines.

  Duff's mouth curved up mildly, his eyes sliding to the laptop on the passenger seat of his car. He'd just closed the monitor from covertly observing Parker's meeting with Senator Hutchinson of Illinois, whose next stop was a press conference for the viral outbreak. The senator's face had split with a campaign smile when he learned Parker could make him a hero on tonight's news once he announced the possibility of an antidote. Parker's price—votes for Zolono Pharmaceuticals—had dampened his excitement.

  After the meeting, Duff had tuned in on a call between Parker and the scientist at Zolono who had agreed to be the one to "create" an antidote in exchange for the money to get his daughter into Harvard. The Fra would be pleased when Duff shared that nugget, though Duff couldn't figure out why the scientist mattered.

  Everyone had a price.

  Duff stretched his neck, ready to move all this along. "That all you have to tell me?"

  "No." Parker snapped the word, clearly put out with Duff's no-nonsense tone. "I've made the transfer."

  "Good." Duff's phone dinged with a new message. "I'll be in touch." He ended the call, then read the text on his screen.

  D—Good work. I will be out of pocket for today so I've asked Consul Vestavia to direct you until I return. He will be in touch shortly but keep an eye on the bird for me, as well.

  FB

  "The bird" would be code for Brady. But Duff frowned as he went over the message again. He didn't even know this Vestavia guy. How could the Fra hand him off to a consul in the middle of this project? The Fra should have had Duff meet the consul in person first.

  Was the old guy getting too pickled to do his job? Duff's phone dinged again. A message from CV—Consul Vestavia. A consul outranked a general, so Duff opened the message and started reading his next instructions.

  * * *

  Nathan wrenched the wheel hard to the right, sliding the Javelin around a corner. Felt like two wheels had lifted. He couldn't afford to lose the traction. He backed off. The rubber grabbed so he shot forward down a one-way street.

  The wrong way.

  A Volkswagen pulled out to turn.

  He slammed the horn. The Bug drove up on the sidewalk.

  Sirens chewed up the air, closing in.

  Nathan dug out the USB memory stic
k and shoved it into his jacket pocket. He spun hard to the left and made two more turns until he saw an overhead door hanging half-open on a warehouse with broken windows and missing sheet metal.

  He drove in, bouncing across wood, and rolled down the windows. Sirens blared coming close, closer… loud… then the sirens passed by and faded away.

  This car was too easily recognizable. With seven hundred horses under the hood, Black Death could outrun just about anything, especially an anemic police cruiser.

  Radios would be a little tougher to beat.

  He cut the engine and sat there a minute. Welcome to my new life. Might as well get used to it.

  Nathan shoved his cell phone in a pocket and locked the car. Moldy air snuck all around him, dank and depressing. He walked around, running his hand over the top. Just let this baby be here when he got back…

  Pulling the hood over his head, he walked to the street, turned left, and started strolling slowly along. Once he reached the Square, he dialed Terri. Voicemail.

  Was she not answering or was that damn phone not working?

  He hit speed dial on his phone. When Stoner answered, Nathan said, "I'm on foot."

  "Where's the Jav—"

  "Parked." Probably for the last time. But he was willing to kiss it good-bye to keep Terri safe.

  Nathan turned to face a store window when a police cruiser passed by. "Where are you?"

  "Waiting outside Terri's house for her Grandma."

  Nathan turned in that direction. "I'm heading your way. When is her grandma supposed to be there?"

  "Twenty minutes ago. When Terri called, she said by the time her grandmother called to say she was back in town she was already close to home. I have a bad feeling about this."

  So did Nathan. "Sit tight. I'll be there in less than ten."

  Terri jumped in her car, took one look at Taggart standing in the doorway, and ignored the pasty fear on his face. Her cell phone rang as she was backing out. "Grandma" popped up on caller ID.

  "Are you with Stoner?" Terri answered, checking around her as she headed back to the station.